Busch, Roush to part ways

Mike Harris

Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005 | 10:01 a.m.

Busy Kurt Busch found enough time to head for Wrigley Field, hoping to forget about NASCAR for at least one night.

"It's just baseball today," Busch said before watching the Cincinnati Reds defeat the Chicago Cubs 8-3 Tuesday.

Earlier, it was announced that the reigning Nextel Cup champion is leaving Roush Racing after next season to drive for Roger Penske's team.

Busch initially didn't want to talk about it, but after throwing out the first pitch and leading the Chicago crowd in singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch, he agreed to discuss his future.

"There's still so much more work to be done in the meantime," he said. "I've got an opportunity to win a championship in 2005, as well as 2006, for whomever I drive for.

"Roush Racing has given me the best equipment to go and do so, and I'm for the opportunity of what these next five races mean, which is to get into the playoffs and of course, the Chase."

But there are questions that remain unanswered.

"There's times for change and then there's times for staying put," Busch said. "I haven't made my 2006 plans very clear yet."

Busch signed a multiyear contract to drive for Penske starting in 2007 and asked to be released from his contract with Roush in 2006, apparently in hopes of replacing retiring Rusty Wallace next season.

In a statement, Roush said the team will wait for "an indefinite period" before making a decision on Busch's request to leave after this season.

"Yeah, we have signed him up for 2007," Penske team president Don Miller said. "As for anything else, the lawyers tell us we can't really comment. We'll just have to see how things shake out."

Busch would join Ryan Newman, current teammate to 1989 Cup champion Wallace.

Roush said there were "sponsor and team considerations" to take into account before making a decision regarding Busch for next season. The team said it would have no additional comment on the split.

The team owned by Roush is the same situation as the Penske team.

Jamie McMurray, currently driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, signed with Roush for 2007. He'll replace Mark Martin, who is planning to retire at the end of this season.

"This does not change anything with us and Jamie. He will still be driving for us in 2006," said Ganassi, who has an option on McMurray's services for next year.

That leaves the No. 6 Ford without a driver for 2006, although Martin has said he would consider staying an extra year if needed by longtime boss Jack Roush.

But Wallace has said repeatedly this will be his final year in the driver's seat. There was no word from Penske on who would drive the No. 2 next season if Busch does not become available.

Roush came to NASCAR's top stock car series in 1988 with one driver, Martin, and has turned the team into a five-car juggernaut with Busch, Martin, Greg Biffle, former champion Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. The team has won two consecutivechampionships and leads everyone this season with nine victories in the first 21 races. Busch has two of those wins.

Roush went 16 years before Kenseth gave him his first Cup title in 2003. Busch then won it in 2004, the first year of NASCAR's 10-race, playoff-style Chase for the Championship.

Busch, who turned 27 last week, is fifth in this year's points race, 277 behind leader Tony Stewart. After a slow start to his Cup defense, he has finished in the top 10 in four of his past six races, but slipped to an 18th-place finish Sunday in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis.

With victories this season at Pocono and Phoenix, Busch seems a solid bet to be among the top 10 drivers in points when NASCAR resets the field for the Chase following the race Sept. 10 in Richmond, Va.

Roush first hired the virtually unknown Busch in 2000 to drive in the Craftsman Truck series.

He won four races that year and finished second in the points standings, leading Roush to move him straight to NASCAR's top series without the traditional intermediate stop in the second-tier Busch Series.

He won his first Cup race in 2002 and had four wins that season. For his Cup career, Busch has 13 wins in 171 starts.

Busch, then 26, was the third-youngest champion in NASCAR history when he won the title last season.